


Rescue and Return (part 1)

by circlecross



Category: due South
Genre: Non-Canon Relationship, formative years, teenage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:24:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circlecross/pseuds/circlecross
Summary: This is a non-canonical look at what made Benton who he is, taking place during teenage years, travelling, tryng to fit in, losing the pieces.It follows him back and forward, as it takes place in a NOW of ten years ago, a THEN of twenty or so years ago, and a NOW of now.(I am putting it on here because I will never finish it if I don't. I hope people like it).





	Rescue and Return (part 1)

The hut smelled like any other communal hall, probably the country, possibly the world over. Warm electricity fug, the chemical tang of a diesel generator, the metallic, acrid note of cold. Particularly cold in this case, he reflected, as he brushed ice crystals from his jacket.  
He padded quietly up behind the busy figure, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, distracted, and Fraser playfully fielded a pretend punch towards her. She was immediately alert, feinted, and punched sharply back, with feeling, and caught him full in the face. He gave a muffled cry, and his fingers dabbed at the cut that had opened on his lower lip.  
“I should have remembered you were left handed”, he grumbled, as his tongue probed the injury. She frowned, and stared closer at him. “Ben? Fraser? Is it Ben Fraser? What…what are you doing here?” she shook her head. “You made me hit you!” She looked furious, but was half crying, half laughing in surprise and shock.   
He grinned, and looked up at her under his lashes. She had always made him feel like he had to prove himself. Physically, intellectually. He had always felt foolish in her presence, despite being two years older than her. Her curiosity and intelligence had spurred him on to keep up, as she had exhausted his grandparents both mentally and bibliographically.  
“You look well”, she said, “apart from the cut lip, obviously”.  
“Thank you kindly. So do you. Really well”. He probed at his lip again, searching for words to engage her. “How long has it been since we last saw each other?”  
She wrinkled her brow in thought. “ooh…about 30 years? I can’t believe you are here!”  
Fraser rubbed his eyebrow, his nervous distraction. “I’m sorry we didn’t stay in touch. I really did enjoy our time together”.  
She smiled her smile which was slightly bemused, slightly superior. “That’s ok. We were young, and busy, and we both moved around a lot. And there wasn’t email then. There was barely phone connection in some of the places we were.” She eyed him, slightly concerned. “What is this? Some bizarre list of people to say sorry to before you are 50?”  
He laughed as he shook his head. Although it was not too bad an assessment of the situation. She continued to stare at him, her eyes the same ice blue as he remembered, glittering like diamonds, when the sun reflected off the snow.  
“So, Ben”, she said, as she turned back to her work. She had been repairing a hardback book, and checked how tacky the glue was, bouncing her fingers on the surface. “Tell me what you’ve been up to these last 30 years”.  
Fraser wondered how to sum up the last decades – his career in the RCMP, his escapades, his injuries. His journey to Chicago, to bring his father’s murderer to justice, his friendships and cases with the two Rays. His ill-fated liaison with Victoria, his pursuit by Fran, his infatuation with Meg. His adventure into the northern wilderness with Ray, or Stanley as it should be. This had given him time to reconnect with the frozen land and brought back memories. His contact with his half-sister, which had given him great joy, but also searing emptiness, as it highlighted his solitude. His realisation that he needed more after his victory at the Shoot Out – more connection, more memories, more of himself back – and he did not want to end up isolated like his father. His father had not had the luxury of old age to reflect back on his life, and Fraser did not want his own reflection to be one of regret.  
When he had found her again, it thrilled him, brought a piece of his past back. He had not realised how much he ached to have memories, until he found them burning into his brain.   
He realised she was still staring at him, waiting for him to answer. He gave a nervous grin. She arched her eyebrow, just like she used to do when they were teenagers.  
“I’ve been fine. Really”, he surrendered to her stare.  
“So…did you become a Mountie?”  
“Yes. I still am. I’ve got some leave time, for ah…personal reasons”. He changed the subject. “I was at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago for quite some time…”  
“Chicago? You? I can’t quite imagine you in a big city”.  
He laughed. “It was a challenge, but I got used to it. Eventually. In a way.” He glanced at her hand, the fingers bouncing on the glue again. “And what of you? I see you’ve still got that funny accent…”  
She pretended to be annoyed. “Yes, I am still cursed with speaking correctly. You should try it”. They both smiled, obviously remembering a childhood incident.   
“And any family?” He could see that she didn’t have a wedding ring on.   
She warmed then. “Yes, I have a daughter”. His throat tightened. “She is 12. She is so wonderful. Can name most of the cloud formations and recognise most trees and mushrooms, and all the bones in the skeleton.” Her face softened as she spoke.   
“And what are you doing back here?” Fraser could hear his voice sounding a little tight.  
“Oh, I needed a challenge, Ben. I needed to be back here. I had never forgotten what it was like here. The cold, the dark, the snow. The solitude. The space to think. It is a bit different now, with better phone connection, and Wi-Fi. So it isn’t AS isolated, but there is still a peace here that I couldn’t find anywhere else”. She smiled, hugely and warmly, and it was like a punch in the gut to Benton. He remembered that smile. It had been a rare occurrence when they were growing up; she had had such sadness in her, and to unlock that smile had been a privilege that he had strove for.  
“And you, Ben, have you got family? How is your dad? Is he still out there somewhere in the wilderness?”  
He gave a bark of laughter. “My father died about 20 years ago. Killed. That’s what took me to Chicago. Strangely, his words have guided me more in death than his presence, or lack of it, ever did in life”.  
“Oh, Ben, I’m so sorry”, she laid a hand on his arm, which made the flesh tingle, even through his layers, so unused to the contact he was.  
“What else, then? You said Chicago? You must have been inundated with women chasing after you. Have you got children?”  
Fraser shook his head. “None. I thought I had found the right person. Well, she wasn’t right. She was really the wrong person. But she made me feel right. For a while”. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Don’t mean to go on”.  
She patted him. “That’s OK, I asked! I thought you would have had at least a curling team of sons running around by now, getting into trouble”.  
Again, that punch to the gut. Ben would’ve liked to have found someone, raised a family. Not that he knew how, really, as his upbringing had been peculiar. Yet this girl – this girl, no, woman now, who he had called a sister for three years, had achieved it. He felt jealous. And irritated with himself for feeling that way.  
She finished the repair she was doing to the hardback book, and smoothed the cover tenderly before replacing it carefully in the bookshelf. She too had been an orphan to living parents. She and Ben had felt a kinship, two oddities thrown together. In the long days of darkness, Ben had lit oil lamps, and wound up a gramophone, and they had learned ballroom dancing without the smell or noise of the generator to disturb them. He had relished the proximity of another human, especially a female one. But had never overstepped the mark.  
They had learned together about the world religions, the Greek myths, and had laid blankets down on the cold earth to study the night sky and find the Greek heroes trapped within. They learned languages: Inuit dialects, Romance languages, Russian, at Martha’s insistence, and his brittle grandmother had warmed to this voracious learner, thawed a little in the ice-bound nights.  
Her mother had been a pupil of his grandmother’s, when she had been a teacher. She had been one of the pupils that Martha had rescued from a fire, and had never forgotten her gratitude. They had remained in touch, penpals, and the letters, although sporadic, had remained a constant in the nomadic lifestyle.   
Her name was Alyssa, which she had grown to appreciate meant “bright, sunlight, brilliant”, but had caused irritation growing up, with people spelling it incorrectly or worse, teasing her, saying she didn’t know how to spell Alice. Her parents had favoured a touring lifestyle, taking educational tours around schools, bringing Greek myths to life with theatre, music and a library. She had enjoyed the travelling at first, when she was toddling around drawing coos and laughter with her cuteness, but later had found it hard to make friends, or keep in touch, when there were so many different faces, week by week. She had tried to keep an address book, filled with her large untidy childish handwriting, but her parents were distracted by their writing, and rehearsing, to buy stamps for her, or post postcards. She had grown up feeling like she was missing. Even though she was right there.  
Her mother, having been rescued from the fire, had grown up with a self-absorption, a fear of missing out on life. The brevity, the opportunities to be taken, the surety of death. Alyssa was an achievement realised, but her mother did not want to stop her own life just because she had a daughter. They decided to send her to boarding school when she was 11, to have some security, and, Alyssa had thought bitterly, to off-load the obligation of raising her on to someone else. The boarding school had been unfulfilling to someone so bright, and tangential, and Alyssa had been in trouble for correcting the teachers too often. Martha had once suggested that Alyssa should come out to be company for Benton, as she home-schooled him when it was impractical to send him anywhere, and Alyssa’s mother reminded her penpal about this offer. If it still stood, would she mind? Martha didn’t mind, and the deal was struck. Alyssa had stoically made the journey, by herself, refusing the offer to go and look at the cockpit, and ignoring the flight attendants who tried to put her at her ease. A scant handful of other lone-child flyers attempted to talk to her, but she ignored them. Her terror was mistaken for aloofness, so they ignored her for the remaining hours. She was met in Vancouver, and boarded into a light aircraft, in which she almost fainted with fear and nausea, as they travelled for hours along the course of the Peel River. Alighting at a shack, in the middle of nowhere, she had been allowed a brief comfort break, and supplied with some warm clothes and mukluks. Then she had been loaded into a dogsled, her bags packed around her, and driven off into further wilderness. Later, she learned her driver had been George. He had been a comforting companion, despite saying very little. Eventually, with her dizzy with fear and exhaustion, they reached the destination, and teeth chattering and green-gilled, she had raced into the hut. She had not wanted to talk to anyone. She was close to tears, afraid of being in a strange land, with strange people but not wanting to admit her fears. She was hungry, but nauseated, exhausted but mind whirring. She nodded through George’s directions to bedroom and bathroom facilities, and fell onto her bed, unable to stay awake a moment longer.  
When she awoke, nearly 20 hours later, her nose was cold, but the rest of her was in an uneasy sweat. She was still in her outdoor layers, and felt like she had not moved once on the bed. She could hear music from another room, and felt like she should go and make contact, even though she didn’t want to. Was nervous to. She glanced over her surroundings – a small room made smaller by a curtain separating it from another bed and side table. An oil lamp, a folding knife and a book about knots were on the table. The bed was neatly made, even though it looked as if the absent bed dweller were male. She was unaware that the occupant of this bed had made good study of her while she slept, had quietly positioned the lamp on her side so that shadows would be cast against the curtain and he could observe her. A 15 year old boy suddenly having proximity to a 13 year old girl was an opportunity Benton was not going to waste, however apprehensive he felt.   
Alyssa was feeling light-headed, and empty, and irritated. She was angry with her parents, and angry that she was dependent on strangers. She was scared of yet again having to try and fit in somewhere, make friendships which had no hope of being sustained. It was draining of emotional energy. She was angry that she had to share a room with a boy, when she was on the brink of womanhood, and would have liked some privacy. She was also nervous about physical changes going on with her, and knew she would have to develop a bond with her mother’s penpal, and soon. All these thoughts were giving her a headache, and she was hungry. She could still hear the music, and so went in search of it. A piano, someone was playing a piano. Out here, in a land of snow. This amused her. She opened a door she vaguely remembered coming through, and the warm, diesel smelling air rushed in. She found a dark haired youth playing an upright, his eyes closed and his fringe flopped over his forehead, swaying with the music. His long fingers danced over the keys, passion rumbling through the floor from the Rachmaninov. She found him compelling, in his private world, voyeuristic to his trance-like display of ecstasy. She was aware her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap. This small sound alerted him, and his eyes sprang open, and his fingers fumbled on the keys. He blushed, and stood up quickly, knocking the stool over, which made him blush more as he clumsily righted it.  
“Please don’t stop, that was incredible”, she manged to croak, but he shook his head.  
“It is a bit unpolished. I need more practice. But thank you. Um…hello. I’m Benton”. He put out his hand to shake. She stared at it, then carefully extended her own.   
“Benton? That’s your name? That’s your first name? That’s kind of odd. I’m Alyssa”.  
“Is that like Alice?” he cocked an eyebrow at her, and she realised he was teasing and reluctantly felt that she might like him. He ignored the jibe about his own name, as he wanted to get to know her. And he liked her accent.  
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”  
“Yes. Everything. All at once. I really want a bath. And um… the loo” she blushed now. Benton was putting music away so he didn’t see, but he blushed too.   
“Sure, follow me. I think grandfather showed you when you first arrived, but you were probably too tired to take it all in”. He led her back through the door she had come through, into the small collection of rooms. “There’s a kitchen area, and we dine here too when we are all together. You’ve seen that we are sharing a room”, again the blush, “and my grandparents are in this room. And here is the toilet and sink. I’m sorry there isn’t a bath. You can have a shower…but it is a cold one. It’s a bucket on a stick”, he grinned. “It wakes you up though”.  
She was disappointed about the lack of washing facilities, but shrugged. “Thank you. Are your grandparents around?”  
“They are out for the day. I’m to look after you and get you settled. Would you like some tea?”  
She nodded. “I have some tea in my luggage somewhere. Your grandmother had requested it”. She didn’t add that she had had to leave some of her books behind to accommodate other requests, like Cadbury’s chocolate and Marmite. It had added to her resentment, but seemed irrelevant now. He hadn’t moved so she added “I can probably manage my own ablutions”.  
“Oh! Yes, sorry…” he turned and bustled off to the kitchen area. She smiled. He seemed nice, and she had been amazed at his piano playing, so she would give him a chance. She also liked the fact that he blushed easily and decided that it would be fun to keep making him blush. After an unsatisfying lukewarm scrub down, drying herself on a rigid towel that smelled of mushrooms, and a swill with toothpaste and finger, she put her jacket back on and went back to her room, their room, to get changed.  
Benton had placed a cup of tea on her bedside table, and was stretched out on his own bed, reading the book about knots. She went to her own side and rootled around for fresh clothes. He had thoughtfully lit her oil lamp also, and she stretched her arms over her head to dispel her grogginess. She heard a squeak of bedsprings, as Benton shifted position, but thought nothing of it. Benton was enjoying the silhouette striptease, pleased that his algorithms with the lamp and shadow had been accurate.  
As they became accustomed to each other’s company, over the long months, she always surprised him, and always was interested. He always wanted to interest her, and try to keep suprising her. He showed her the beautiful landscapes created by the Group of Seven. She shook her young head – where was the reality in this beauty? She showed him how Turner painted the world as it changed around him; the beauty of the ever-changing NOW. They both had unfillable appetites for knowledge, and burned through Martha’s library like wildfire. When they practised languages together, he loved to watch her frown and gurn with the pronunciations, furious with herself when she got something wrong. He loved the shape of her mouth as much as the sounds of the words, his own lips unconsciously mirroring the way her lips moved. She observed this, so played with him on occasion, pursing her lips to make him follow suit. They laughed about it, and in these moments of shared closeness, Benton felt truly alive, truly involved with another soul. Not alone. She loved to see his lop-sided grin, with his crooked tooth. It took away his seriousness and unlocked the doors he normally shut against the world.  
He had felt so lonely before her arrival, despite not always being alone. Although he knew his grandparents, and his father, loved him, in their own practical way, he yearned for a closeness that had been missing since his mother died. He wasn’t sure if it was physicality he craved, or a meeting of minds, but he had decided to experiment with how close he could be to Alyssa, without her becoming alarmed. He was close enough to feel the warmth from her skin, smell her hair. He edged a little closer. He had no idea where it could or should lead, but he felt comfortable being near her. The scent of her was familiar to him, having grown used to it over the months. Slightly astringent, slightly musky, slightly metallic at certain times of the month, sometimes with a floral note if she had used some of her precious cache of Anais Anais body lotion. He found that added a maturity to her, but preferred her natural scent. Like today. No soap, no lotions. Just her. He inclined his head to study the next phrase they were perfecting in Inuktitut, and managed to lean in another centimetre. Her ponytail swished forward as she bent her head to look at the book, and it delivered another dose of her scent to him. She flipped her hair back, and hit him in the face with it, so close he was.  
“I’m sorry”  
“It’s fine”. She was so close, so close. He could feel her breath on his face. He glanced at her mouth, licked his lips nervously.   
“Can you not see the book? Am I hogging it?” she pushed the book nearer to him.  
“Thanks, that’s better”. Benton lost his nerve. He had read plenty of books where charming spies, or dashing adventurers wooed scantily clad double agents, or alien princesses, but a teenage girl, in a snow-bound cabin, suddenly seemed an impossible conquest.


End file.
